Corey Taylor has once again said that his record company stopped him from singing with ANTHRAX when the opportunity for him to work with the band presented itself more than a decade ago.
The SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR frontman had harbored hopes of replacing Joey Belladonna for the follow-up to “We’ve Come For You All”, recorded with John Bush in 2003.
“It was something that really we hadn’t talked about too much at length,” Corey said during a August 12 appearance on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation Virtual Invasion” (see video below). “It was just something that we had talked about doing just ostensibly as a one-off, but we were just gonna kind of see what could happen.
“That actually started as an idea because of an acoustic gig that I did with Scott [Ian, ANTHRAX guitarist] and Frankie Bello [ANTHRAX bassist] at a place in New York. And I cannot remember what the name of the place was. I know it was a club that Scott had maybe an interest in it, so we were helping to promote the club. And it was something really cool that it was just, like, ‘Hey, do you wanna come do this?’ I was, like, ‘Yeah, man. Let’s do it.’ So we went down, we had dinner, we did the acoustic show. And then afterwards, we were all kind of just hanging out, and the half-joking line got thrown out, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if you joined ANTHRAX?’ And we all laughed, and then we all stopped. And we all just went, ‘Hmmm. That could interesting.’ It was between Joey and John [Bush], so everything was kind of up in the air. It was before — what was his name? — Dan [Nelson]. And we talked about it more and more, and it was something that I was really, really into. They sent me a bunch of music, most of which ended up on [2011’s] ‘Worship Music’ — luckily, because the music was so good. Nothing got recorded, because the day I was supposed to fly to Chicago to rehearse and start demoing with Scott and with Charlie [Benante, ANTHRAX drummer], I got a phone call from Roadrunner [SLIPKNOT‘s record label] telling me that they weren’t gonna let me do it. They wanted me to go back and do [SLIPKNOT‘s] ‘All Hope Is Gone’, because we [were] still contracted to do another SLIPKNOT album, and they weren’t going to allow me the wiggle room. I don’t even know if those people are still at Roadrunner, to be honest. But I know that they cracked the whip on it and were really hardcore.”
He continued: “It was the first time I had ever felt like I was kind of backed into a corner. Not that I didn’t wanna do a SLIPKNOT album, but I was so into the idea of doing an ANTHRAX album. And I remember having to call and tell the guys [in ANTHRAX] that I wasn’t gonna be able to make it. It broke my heart so hard. But, obviously, things worked out for the better for them. They’re making music that’s just as good now as the older stuff than it’s ever been. What needed to happen is exactly what happened. I’m just grateful that: a) I’m a part of their conversation, and b), that they’re still my friends.”
ANTHRAX split with Belladonna in January 2007, less than two years after reuniting with him and other members of the band’s “classic” lineup of the ’80s and early ’90s. Bush had been a member of the band before that, from 1992 to 2005.
ANTHRAX eventually reunited with Belladonna in May 2010 and recorded two more albums with the singer: the aforementioned “Worship Music” and 2016’s “For All Kings”.
